


bet you've got a bone to pick with me

by memorytheservant



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: (is the real horror but also SQUIPS. screw SQUIPs.), Aftermath of Torture, And Featuring A Special Guest Appearance By:, Anxiety Attacks, Bad High School Theatre, Body Horror, But also healthy coping mechanisms, Christine Canigula Appreciation, Dark Crack, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everyone Goes To Therapy, Eye Trauma, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jenna Rolan Appreciation, Jeremy Heere has an ESA rabbit I would die for, Jeremy Heere's Plushie Collection, Jeremy and Nato are cousins, Michael Mell is a Fantastic Friend, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Musical References, Nato Obenkrieger's Intimate Knowledge Of Third-Rate Ice Cream Cake Lore, Nightmares, Nonlinear Recovery, Orange and Blue Morality, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepwalking, Teenage Dorks, Teenage Drama, Therapy, Torture, Trauma Anniversaries, Triggers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Yiddish cursing, halloween fic, high school hijinks gone very wrong, is my brand, not quite dead, pop-culture references, squip horror, there are some memes to abate the spookiness, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorytheservant/pseuds/memorytheservant
Summary: As the one-year anniversary of that fateful Halloween night draws near, Jeremy finds himself struggling.Thankfully, someone reaches out to lend a helping hand. Whether he wants it or not.(Halloween 2019 fic.)
Relationships: Brooke Lohst/Jenna Rolan, Christine Canigula/Jeremy Heere, Jake Dillinger/Michael Mell
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	bet you've got a bone to pick with me

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here, and in true Coco fashion, several days past Halloween. As well as ten times as long as intended, so it had to be split into two parts. Such is life! 
> 
> Special thanks to everyone on the Discord for ceaseless encouragement, aka enabling me. 
> 
> This is a horror fic for Halloween, so mind the tags, guys. Seriously. Stay safe out there, and happy Haunts!

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]**: Hey, Michael?

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese**:] listen, about today…

For the better part of an hour after he writes it, Jeremy doesn’t know if he’s going to send it.

He doesn’t know if it’d backfire against its own intention, as so many things did, unearthing what ought to stay buried.

He doesn’t know he had the right to say these things. To _him. _

But as he spent the better part of Tuesday afternoon curled in on himself on the soft camel couch in Dr. Shulman’s sunlit office, nodding and “m-hming” as she gently talked about how he’d been trained, _conditioned_, really, to take the blame wholeheartedly for most everything long before he’d ever swallowed the quantum processor. He plucked up one of the soft embroidered cushions on the couch and hugged it close to his chest, memorizing the stitches forming the poplar trees while she went on to tell him that it was a good thing he wanted to make amends, really, it was, but there was a point at which it was unhealthy. As always, he stretched the session longer than the usual fifty-five minutes and felt awful about it, but at least they managed to work out that if he saw it as working _with, _rather than _for, _the people involved, the people closest to him, it might be a healthier method of facing the compulsion.

So he sends the texts, careful per Dr. Shulman’s advice to not use the word ‘ashamed’.

In paragraphs.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: So like

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]**: It’s October 1 today, and I know what this month brings up for us. For everyone. And I heard that there are like, anniversaries for this kind of thing? And one year on, I know it might be rough for all of us.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’**** Cheese]**: Esp with like how they’ll decorate in school and idk what other reminders, but you know, like, changing leaves and shit, I don’t know. I swear I’m not half-assing this, dude, although I know it sounds totally half-assed, and I’m sorry about that too.

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **You probably don’t want to hear this? Like? At all. Or you’ll tell me to shut up and that it’s not a big deal to make me feel better because you’re such a good friend/person that you’re gonna keep putting me ahead even when you’re hurting, even though we’ve promised not to do that, so I’m just gonna say it anyway, okay?

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’**** Cheese]: **I am so deeply, truly sorry for what I did. For the selfish choices I made, and how I hurt you to try to get ahead, for weeks and weeks of last fall. I’m sorry about what I said that night, and about what I didn’t say for all those weeks. I’m sorry I yelled. And I’m sorry I hurt you.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’**** Cheese]: **I’m going to keep working no matter what to make things better, between us and between everyone, and to get better myself so I can help us heal.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’**** Cheese]: **You’re my Player One, my best friend, and mean more to me than stupid words are good for. Whatever and whoever comes and goes, I love you more than anything. Even if I had a kinda piss-poor way of showing it – okay, a really piss poor way of showing it at times, that never changed.

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]: **You are the best thing to happen to me, and you deserve to feel like the best. So, so, whatever comes up this month, please tell me, okay? I want to be here for you.

[**To: Charles ‘Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]: **I want to try to close the wounds. Or at least bandage them.

With that, he locks his phone and pockets it, then continues along his path to school. Dad normally drives him, a typical embarrassment for a Senior looked upon instead with grateful eyes. The bus is out of the question since Madeline takes it and that was a whole can of worms that perpetually pries itself open and squirmed its little worm army all over him whether he likes it or not.

Quite like the SQUIP, Jeremy can’t abide bugs. Metaphorical, technological, or otherwise.

But he _really _can’t abide having anything in common with the SQUIP, so sometimes the maudlin takes precedence out of spite more than practicality or even personal value.

But long walks do him a tangible good, help remind him that he is real and can choose, even if it’s a bad, stupid choice that’ll make him either too sweaty to live or, on other days when his alarm clock or raging pre-class hormones have failed him, late for class. Besides which, the cool, crisp autumn air slows his normally racing heartbeat down and puts a swell deep in his belly that feels like something approximating inner peace, or at the very least, circulatory peace.

Even on the bleak landscape that is a high school campus, the natural beauty of the fall breathes some energy back into Jeremy’s limbs. Something about the way the interstices of the trees seem a little tighter, the branches huddling closer from the cold wind, filtering both the early morning’s murky gold-and-orange-hued sunlight to appear as a spotlight, just this side of seeming real, suffuses him with the kind of equanimity he needs this time of year.

Rather than reminiscing on the events of last fall, which seem to eat away at far too much of his time even one year on, it reminds Jeremy of earlier, simpler autumns. Ones spent jumping into piles of leaves raked up by Michael’s moms, of sitting at the kitchen table and plucking out seeds excitedly while Dad put smiles on pumpkins’ faces, at an age where he was too little to be trusted with a knife.

Not perfect ones, but better ones.

As if on cue, he offers himself a cheerier thought in the form of being open to accepting the possibility. _Maybe this can be a better one. A better fall. For everyone. _CBT practice needs to become habit. He can’t help but liken it to the act of reprogramming.

Breathing in the frigid air and eagerly catching a whiff of what few apples remain, Jeremy eyes Middleborough’s not-so-hallowed-doors, about to break into a sprint to hurry inside just for the hell of it, but his best laid plans are interrupted, as they so often are, by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket. He delays fishing it out for a few seconds, his throat lurching at what might await him.

[**From: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]: **dude wtf I’m crying over my sexy ghostbusters costume now

Jeremy sputters out a high-pitched sound somewhere between a giggle and a tearless sob. Not _quite _what he was expecting, but also utterly unsurprising.

Good to know that Michael will always be Michael, at least.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: Okay, one, there’s no way you have a costume this early. One point five, no way you have it with you right before school?

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: Two, sexy Ghostbusters?!?

[**From: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]: **sorry, I meant empowering ghostbuster costume?

Jeremy rakes his palms down his acne-studded cheeks.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: /Three/, c’mon, man, I’m trying to be serious here.

[**From: Charles ****‘****Entertainment****’ ****Cheese]: **yeah I kno

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **are u breathing ok? Bc I could barely breathe reading that

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **look, first of all, we already both know that we’re sorry, and that everyone kinda fucked up last year

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **if talking about it helps you heal, I’d be a huge dick to tell you to stop

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **but at the same time I’m not gonna let you self-flagellate. nobody expects you to, least of all now.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **and if u ask me the idea of ‘earning’ forgiveness is pretty fucked in general

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **but especially for someone in your situation

Jeremy swallows hard. He doesn’t know if his own bullshit plans blowing up in his face count as ‘extenuating circumstances’, but he remembers Dr. Shulman’s reminder that the mentality he has to suffer for every – even _any _– wrongdoing, perceived or otherwise, was drilled into him by forces he now has to try to purge. _Accountability brings to mind a prison sentence or going to bed without supper or an electric – well, you know. Amends means being kind to others and to yourself. _

He doesn’t argue back.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **I love you too man, you know that. more than life

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **like u didn’t need to give me the whole oscar winning speech

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **tho it was super well written and touching (see: me crying over my empowering sexy Ghostbusters costume)

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: Still not buying it.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **point is, we’ve all come a super long way and I’m really proud of us

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **yeah we still hurt n shit sometimes –

Jeremy suddenly finds it hard to breathe.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **but we deal by sticking together no matter what and talking shit out. like were getting better at doin. you both hurt and got hurt way worse. you more than did your time. we all did.

He wipes his eyes, managing a slow, rattling breath. It stammers and stutters worse than his speech does on a bad day. 

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: Who made you so wise?

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **lesbians

Okay, yeah, should’ve seen that one coming.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **but for real man, you gotta not beat urself up about it 1 year later. well take it as it comes. 2pg?

Jeremy grins, his eyes definitely a little red.

[**To: Charles ****‘****Entertainment’ Cheese]**: 2pg.

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]: **oh btw

[**From: Charles ‘Entertainment’ Cheese]:_ Attachment: 1 Photo. _**

** **

Lo and behold, right on his very own iPhone screen, there’s Michael in what looks to be a homemade Ghostbusters costume that leaves very little to the imagination, complete with a proton pack that looks mangled out of old vacuum cleaner parts. He’s not sure when he took the picture, but it makes him giggle madly nonetheless.

Perhaps, sometimes, things can turn out not as hard as they seem.

Perhaps, all the time, Jeremy is an idiot for believing this. 

** **

The pumpkins are the first big sign that things won’t be as easy as Michael tries to make them appear.

Most of the student body of Middleborough bemoan or at the very least ridicule the corny Halloween decorations and signs that go up every year, the throes of teenage cynicism enough to lead to such creative ways of sticking it to the man as creative tears on pumpkin banners, positioning the posable cardboard skeletons in the crudest ways possible, and of course, penises galore. Just dicks scrawled on everything, from cartoon Draculas to the mummies in the cutesy themed Drink Safely and Get a Designated Driver PSA posters, even Frankenstein (_The Creature! _He can already hear Christine shouting) isn’t immune to being gifted with an enormous schwanzstucker.

That much, Jeremy was banking on, preparing to deal with through memes shared in various group chats.

What he’s not prepared for is the acid sting of his breakfast cheerfully reminding him it’s still in his throat when he sees a particularly large Jack-O-Lantern, lit from within with some mini LED bulb, perched on a table next to a few tidy piles of pamphlets.

The giant candle was all over the news, of course. Everyone was very keen on identifying the main bit of evidence for what the court of public opinion had already judged undeniably, irredeemably, guilty.

(Jeremy threw up his lunch when he thought about how he’d idly counted the pretty lamps, head upside-down and just a few inches scarce of Christine’s lap. A high school dream if you ignored everything that transpired before, and after. And even a little _during. _He can still hear the way the SQUIP tutted affectionately, ran a soothing hand over his back and murmured something about indulging his overreactions. Jeremy shudders at the memory. Shudders harder at how he misses the particular comfort that can only come from a supercomputer.)

On the note of reactions, he casts a glance all around him. Weird how things changed enough in a year that he's actually actively _looking _for Rich, but it is what it is, and they emerged from the ordeal as friends. 

**(Fire-forged friends?)**

For the sake of his day, Jeremy is going to act as if he imagined that.

Still, once his books are retrieved from his locker, he’s now searching high and low for Rich. He considered texting him for half a second, but one, he’s not even sure what he’d say (and he’s fairly certain the guy would loathe any kind of warning, no matter how well-intended; would write it off as condescending rather than arising from a place of protective concern.

And a shameful part of him still fears that explosive anger, even though he can count on a single hand the number of times the boy’s openly expressed it after all was said and done.

As always, Christine Canigula is a hero and swoops in to the rescue in a flurry of neon-bright clothes and brighter laughter and the brightest eyes.

She passes strategically, arm locked vice-tight through Rich’s toned, now permanently-scarred bicep. Her maneuvers may look like haphazard zigzags while she chatters away, but there’s a method to her madness. Even before he notices her smile is a mite too wide, even before he catches her eye and she looks as if she did indeed sense a disturbance in the Force, Jeremy notes how she’s purposefully avoiding any of the particularly ostentatious decorations, and even _more _purposefully glancing about at any asshole with something to say to him about this time of year, a silent _I dare you. _

Much as most teenagers like to start shit out of that toxic combination of boredom, petty cruelty, and being locked in the same ugly-ass building with each other day in and day out, they also tend to value their hides. Which means, of course, that you do not cross Christine Canigula.

He can’t hold her gaze for very long, as she’s busying herself with a rather cautious, tired-looking Richard Goranski, but it’s enough to root Jeremy to the spot and melt him into a damn puddle.

Logically, Jeremy knows that idealization never did anyone any good, that seeing her as an angel and not a person was what got him into all this mess in the first place, but in the past almost-year they’ve spent dating, the silver starlight that seems to bathe her everywhere she steps hasn’t dimmed a bit. If anything, getting to know what makes her snap, what prompts the loudest and most undignified of cackles, getting to earn that permanent bowling alley ban, and yes, having several striped shirts ruined with streaks of tears and snot as he held her through the harder nights when she cried her heart out into his chest after having lapsed into one of those alarmingly uncharacteristic stormy, stony silences – makes her all the more refulgent.

Perfectly imperfect, as the girl herself likes to say.

“She really is the best, isn’t she?”

Jeremy jumps at a voice that isn’t his echoing his thoughts, but thankfully, it exists quite definitely outside of his head. He whirls around to see Jake Dillinger standing behind him, as tall and as warm and as unfairly gorgeous as ever. He’s watching Christine march Rich towards their morning chem lab with a sappy smile of pure admiration etched into his features. After agonizing for a second over the hope that they’re not using the Bunsen burners today, Jeremy’s focus shifts towards Jake, his guilt eagerly awaiting a statement to seize upon and ruminate over all the possible ways in which the negative parts might be attributed to him, even if he has less than nothing to do with them. Dr. Shulman calls it an inner Salem witch hunt. Christine and Michael then spent an entire afternoon speculating with him over what a Squipped production of _The Crucible _would look like.

“She sure is,” he nods, returning the smile and knowing his version of lovestruck falls more into the _dopey _category, whereas Jake is all teen-romcom good looks.

Jake claps him on the shoulder. “You’re a lucky man, Jeremy Heere. You got yourself a major badass. But, like, a nice one.”

Unsure of quite how to return the gesture (it’s a little too early in the morning to submit to the indignity of having to hop on one foot to reach Jake’s shoulders), Jeremy gingerly takes his opposite elbow.

“Hey, you did pretty well yourself too, y-y’know? With the whole, um. Dating a badass deal. I seem to remember _your _boyfriend being the one to stop the zombie apocalypse…”

Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit plus shit to the power of fuck. Now plot the parabola.

He swears he doesn’t keep meaning to bringing it up, but it just seems to seep into every other casual conversation he has with those involved, the way something glowing white and blue creeps in the corners of his room just before he wakes up – the way he sometimes sees circuits etching into his cheeks and forearms if he only catches his reflection out of the corner of his eye.

Before he can properly berate himself for retraumatizing everyone, for the collective trauma that was also his fault, all his fault, Jake is somehow, mercifully, sputtering out a laugh and nudging him gently in the ribs.

Better still, it’s a real one - over time, he’s gotten to know Jake’s tells well enough to immediately spot the difference. A genuine Jake Dillinger laugh goes on a little too long, pauses for a few “_ayyyyyyo_!” and _“holy shit!_” commercial breaks, and makes his deep brown eyes crinkle at the edges in bliss to match the dimples Hashem Himself must’ve embedded into his cheeks. 

“Shit, dude, I just – I just realized – _holy shit _–” He wheezes lightly, and then catches his breath again. He started laughing a lot more like this after coming out, and then even more when getting together with Michael (the two had sort of overlapped), and the sound of it has come to relax Jeremy. It sounds like a wordless _we cool, _which, although the actual phrase has been stated several times by the guy himself, is a sentiment Jeremy is still yet to feel like he’s earned.

(Guilt isn’t something that crushes him. It’s more like something deep _inside, _something miswired and faulty and defective. A weight that settles in his chest and gut, heavy and horrible, that threatens to drag him to the ground, and then ten levels subterranean where there’s no air left to breathe.)

Still, Jeremy can’t help but bite his lip, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. “What? What did you…”

“We’re – okay, you know that old reality show, they did a Simpsons episode about it – what was it, _Trading Spouses?_” Jake lets out a few more syllables of laughter before going on, “That’s us! We traded kickass baes. Because it was you and Mike before, and of course, me and Christine before I…”

Oh. Jeremy doesn’t have the heart to roll his eyes, not at Jake, although the impulse takes him. Still, his voice is wry when he speaks up. “Jake, Michael and I never _actually _dated.”

To his surprise, Jake nods sagely, catching his shoulder again. “Maybe, but hey, that’s what I’m about, y’know? I mean, think about it, Heere. What is a bae, but a bro with two letters changed?”

At this bit of Confucian wisdom, Jeremy does crack up a little bit, holding back enough both to hide the strident donkey-bleat that is his own laugh (he swears he’s coming to love it as part of his own voice, it’s just a little easier to love it around some people more so than others), but it dies quickly as Rich and Christine fade from view.

Dead silence hangs thickly in the air between him and Jake now, the previous moment’s bonhomie slowly but surely peeling back the veil to reveal some veritable emotion underneath. And like with many things, what’s just under the surface is hardly pleasant.

He knows what’s really going unsaid between both he and Jake, and this pissing contest of keeping it light, while pleasant, isn’t really going to benefit either of them in the long run. That and Jake is still the master compartmentalizer, so Jeremy breaks first.

“S-so, uh…” He licks his lips a little. “Where, uh, where are you two, um, at?”

Jake’s good at pretending, really damn good, but he’s never quite mastered feigning stupidity. The natural Dillinger’s Dumbest Moments are somewhat inimitable that way, Jeremy’s come to realize. That, and his easygoing smile’s tightened a little in a way that twists his gut and makes him regret asking.

“Me and Christine are tight,” he says. “Ever since she joined debating team we’ve been crushing it, we’re gonna _kill _at state finals –” 

“Jake…” Jeremy’s a little afraid to interrupt, but at the same time, Jake’s a good enough guy to take the hint. Or at least he sort of thinks they’ve reached the place where Jeremy’s not out of line in _giving _said hint.

Jake’s face darkens a little, and Jeremy’s about to plunge headfirst yet again into the Regret Pool, but then he just sighs, staring down at the floor.

“Look, he’s my boy. He’s always gonna be my boy. It’s not as bad as it was before, and we’re getting there, we are, but…” He purses his lips and exhales through them, cheeks puffing out in the effort. “Shit, Heere, really just gonna drop that on a guy, huh?”

Jeremy winces. “Sorry – _sorry_! I – I shouldn’t’ve – you don’t gotta –”

Jake waves him off, looking pained. “Naw, it’s fine, bro. You care. Look, it’s like…I _don’t _blame him. But I kinda do. But then I totally don’t.”

He nods, somehow understanding.

“I miss him. I _miss _the guy, so, so much. And yeah we hang every other day but…I miss him. I feel guilty for not doing more. Even before…” he taps his temple, a signifier for ‘SQUIP’ Jeremy immediately guesses he picked up from Michael. “I feel like I shoulda…. shoulda. I don’t even know, man.” His voice breaks a little, and Jeremy knows immediately that if Jake starts crying, so will he.

But he doesn’t. He never does, does he? Not in front of him, anyway.

“I look at him and most of the time I feel glad, because he’s my guy. I look at him and see where it all fucked up. Where _I _fucked up, which is on me and not him. And I look at him, and I see the fire. And I hate myself for seeing that.”

Speaking of selfishness – Jeremy wonders if whenever Jake looks at him, he sees a pair of crutches clattering to the polished surface of the stage.

** _Look what you’re making me make him –_ **

No. No. _Loudest one is – _

The bell rings.

** **

Turns out the loudest voice being your own doesn’t do you a whole lot of good when your own voice is pretty pissed off at you.

Jake’s words stay on Jeremy’s mind all day and all night. Keep him awake long after he’s made sure to feed Peppy one last time (the beloved little bunny is getting rounder, but not bigger), gotten to a point where he’s more or less satisfied with where he’s at in his History of the Ancient World essay, brushed his teeth, and tucked himself into bed, a series of rituals engineered to give him just enough structure devised by his own hand to keep him aware, and just enough things to remember to tire him out sufficiently. 

But with the leaves turning the colour of flames and the dates beginning to mark one shitty anniversary after the next, sleep doesn’t come easy to him.

Perhaps his mind is too full. Perhaps he’s afraid.

It’s stupid to be scared, he tries to reason, hugging his large Winnie the Pooh close to his chest. The nightmares haven’t hit him that badly in months, and he’s even managed to go a pretty long time without even a panic attack. A tricky combination of meds, therapy, and a support system, to say nothing of an emotional support rabbit who’s his knight in long-eared armor, _have _gone a long way. 

But Jake’s words keep echoing in the back of his head. _I look at him and see the fire. _

He knows better than he knows how to breathe that you can’t help the worst of your thoughts when they first pop up. He knows that they don’t make for the sum of your view on someone, considering even how many times Jake made it clear that he still loves Rich more than anything. The way he said it to Michael – the way he said it to Rich. And he knows that forgiveness can exist on one level, but the memories can still remain.

After all, it’s still hard to accept a hug or even to sit next to Chloe on some days. He’s long since delineated that as is always the case, the SQUIP was to blame, but that knowledge doesn’t stop the fear or the flesh memory.

And the knowledge of Jake’s initial thought not dictating his full view of someone doesn’t stop him from agonizing over what everyone must be thinking when they look at him.

He counts them off in his head. Michael, Christine, Dad. Brooke and Jenna. Jake, and Rich. Even Chloe. He’s guilty for hurting them, all of them. Even when people have more or less absolved or forgiven him, that’s just what they _say, _right? Jake surely doesn’t tell Rich what he confided in Jeremy today.

Jeremy’s stomach hurts. There’s someone else he hurt. Someone who did everything for him. Someone who did everything _to _him, but the screams still echo in his ears.

The way Christine’s accusatory _we could have done something _sometimes does. The way his own words and actions that he can never, ever take back, no matter how many times he reimagines and puts things right, how many stories he writes where the hero doesn’t make the mistake in the first place, or better yet, had a good reason to make those mistakes and can make up for it, _can _be forgiven. 

Can he be -?

** _Jeremy, please – _ **

Jeremy hugs Pooh Bear closer. Closes his eyes, tries to think about what Dr. Shulman taught him for when the pressure swells in his head and the words die in his throat and he shuts down. For when the panic of not being able to say what he needs to threatens to take him back to the heat of stage lights and his fist moving unwillingly to connect with Michael’s jaw. When the memories make him leave his body.

Listen for the far-off sounds first. The winds are wild in the autumn evening rain, and the trees outside his window rustle and batter at each other, their dying leaves crumpling and clashing.

Now breathe through the nose. Find something to touch – check. The boon of an ever-growing plushie collection is that beyond the mere fact of existing as comfort objects, the sensory joys of soft cushiness can anchor him easily.

There’s not a lot to see if he opens his eyes, so he skips that stage and just repeats the first two, over and over, until his mind is a little more quiet. And for half a moment, it is. And for half a moment, Jeremy smiles.

For half a moment.

**Guilt? Over _me? _How touching, Jeremy. Heinously overdue, but touching.**

_“Gah!_” His eyes fly open, lashes fluttering rapidly, but he sees nothing. Not the bricking of pixel, not a hint of a pair of heterochromatic eyes, not the faint glow of platinum hair – or, if he’s feeling more stylishly terrifying, a slicked black bang that would surely be the envy of Sasuke himself.

But there’s nothing. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. His breath stutters.

He’s never going to get over the sheer terror Ted fucking Logan’s voice can instill into his very being, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and he hasn’t heard from him in months – leaving the possibility that he might be imagining this, which comes as very little comfort when it raises the _secondary _conclusion that he can no longer distinguish his own thoughts from the SQUIP’s voice, which ranks fairly close to the top on the list of Jeremy Heere’s Biggest Fears.

He’s acutely aware of how hard he’s breathing again, loud and wobbly gasps, right when he calmed down, too. His toes curl and flex, and he focuses on keeping that repeated in the futile hopes that he might stop shaking quite so badly.

But he can’t calm down. And he can’t keep the doubt, the guilt, from creeping back in, chilling him down to the bone even swaddled as he is under blankets and sheets, makes him taste sharp, warm copper bile in his mouth.

And alone in the dark, Jeremy hears a low, rumbling chuckle that makes his blood run cold. The voice soon gains a partner in mirth, the second one a bass-contralto creating a truly horrific dual-voiced sound.

He goes still as woodland prey when the hunting hound’s long howls can be heard.

Eyes tick left, then right. Still nothing, nothing at all _tangible _laughing at him in the dark. For all that he knows, it could be his own guilt laughing at him – in a way, perhaps, it is.

**Look how badly you’re doing. **

He doesn’t reply. _Loudest one is mine. _If this is a hallucination, a product of a conscience-addled imagination and some sleep deprivation one year on, surely if he ignores it or dismisses it, it will go away.

**There’s your mistake, Jeremy. I never went anywhere. **

**And I’m not _going_ anywhere. **

“Bu-but I can learn to live with you,” retorts Jeremy aloud, surprising even himself. It makes him feel brave. A little badass, even, like a sly scoundrel in the sci-fi movie who mouths off to the evil masked bad guy. And a hell of a lot stronger than SQUIP will ever, ever know.

**Can you? **

** _Did _ ** **you? **

Jeremy swallows thickly.

**Look how unhappy you are. Just from a simple conversation with Jake. **

“I’d, I-I-I’d be worse off if someone _broke my arm._”

As always when he points out some obvious wrong, the SQUIP ignores him. It’s incredibly easy to fall back into habit when conversing, it seems, and that makes Jeremy clutch at his duvet all the more frantically.

**You know, there’s a very simple solution to your troubles – **

“_No!” _Jeremy squeaks, feeling tears prick his eyes. If he’s really going to have to live like this forever – “No, no, _shut up! _Shut the fuck –”

Another double-voiced titter silences him, or rather, makes his stammered protests devolve into hyperventilating gasps that tear through his ribs and send his heart rate soaring. He feels something brush weakly against the life-giving organ – were it a little stronger, perhaps, it might have regulated it, while soothing words would be cooed in his ear – but no, he doesn’t want that, he _can’t _want that… 

**Oh. _Oh, I see. _How reassuring. **

**You still _need _me. **

“Nuhn-n-nuh-n-no,” Jeremy whimpers, refusing to think at him, refusing to do a damn thing he was ever instructed to by this monster – no, this _thing _– “No, I –”

**Shhhhhh, shshshshshhhhh, there, _there_. You do. You just don’t see it yet. But you will.**

**Goodnight, Jeremy. **

Jeremy screams his throat raw into his pillow hours after the SQUIP goes quiet again. Then spends the rest of the night in the living room, half-watching reruns on Adult Swim while cuddling a half-asleep Peppy, terrified of letting there be another moment of quiet that might give him – it – an inch.

** **

The week yawns uncomfortably forwards.

There hasn’t been any sign of SQUIP since Tuesday night. No echoes in his head, no glimpses of that mien of chiseled satisfaction, not even an involuntary muscle spasm that would surely send him to pieces. Jeremy isn’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, which makes everything _worse _because that uncertainty adds _weight _to what the SQUIP said about still needing him, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

Dr. Shulman picked a hell of a time to go out of town for two weeks for a conference, but she works through Thanksgiving, so he doesn’t want to blame her. He doesn’t want to blame anyone but – 

Anyone but – 

“Jeremy?” Christine’s voice is like honey, or that really good maple syrup Dad orders from Québec. He lets his girlfriend’s sweetness wash over him, basking in it long enough for her to start prodding at his shoulder in gentle concern. 

“Class is _over_,” she tells him, her brow furrowed. “It _has _been for like, ten minutes. You fall asleep or something? It’s not _that _boring.”

He tries to manage something close to a smile, but feels his mouth go all lopsided. He’s no good at lying to her. Not without guidance, anyway…

_Has it been telling you what to say to me this entire time? _Does she even trust him, her own boyfriend, at all? Has he earned that, has he given her any reason to?

“I, uh…sorry. I guess I’ve been, um…”

“Distracted?” Her smile is sympathetic, but pain tightens the corners of her eyes. Hopping on one foot, she tugs at his hand. “Me too. C’mon. You can walk me to my locker, and you can tell me what’s been on your mind. Or I can tell you what’s on mine, first. And then we can be zoned-out together.”

Jeremy gets to his feet, now smiling for real, the way he can’t help but do when they’re together. The same way he can’t help but be brave when he’s with her – brave enough to throw the SQUIP clean off his back with sudden Herculean strength, the kind you only gain by having to face twelve trials for your misdeeds, brave enough to walk back into the auditorium because she holds his hand and promises there are no phantoms in this opera (“But there _is _a Christine,” he pointed out to her utmost theatre kid delight), brave enough to tell truths he’s afraid to even face himself.

But he still can’t tell her this. So he stalls, and lets her talk first.

She’s in a few AP classes again this year, which is a challenge because of the more rigorous homework demands from many sources rather than one – and while she hyperfocuses on Lit, it’s prioritizing that always seems to be a challenge for her. She nearly got into a fight on Wednesday, because she heard Jackson Luzum asked Rich for a light before sneering “oh, _wait_,” and when Rich and Brooke both talked her out of it, she spent the whole rest of the night crying on his behalf.

“You should’ve texted me,” Jeremy says, ready to cry at the thought of Christine crying. (It’s a bit of an endless spiral between the both of them.) “Or FaceTimed. I’d’v’e done my one-man-_Newsies_ for you.”

Christine grins. “Oh, don’t remind me. _Yo’ah da king’a Neeewww Yahhhhhwwwwk,_” she drawls in what is an unfairly good Brooklyn accent, much better than his farcical one. It sends Jeremy into a giggle fit, which ends with him impulsively pecking her cheek. She gives him a sly look and jumps to go right for his lips, tugging him downwards into the kiss.

Their moment of romance dies down as they scuttle through the afternoon crowds towards Christine’s locker.

“And now, of course,” she sighs, “we’re getting closer to, well…_that _anniversary.” She looks almost apologetic for having brought it up. But before Jeremy can quell her concerns, she glances up at him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ramble so much about my problems when you…well, um. Has that been what’s been bugging you lately, too?”

Jeremy’s nodding before he can stop himself. “Yeah.” And then, again. “Yeah. It’s…we’ve all come a long way, in the last year, but…” 

“But it’s still hard.”

Ever one to try to wipe the sorrow from her face and from her heart, Jeremy pipes up with a suggestion. “Hey, Michael’s having a horror marathon at his place this year,” he offers, “I’m sure he’d love for you to come. Jake and Rich will probably be. And his amazing, super-chubby cat. And a whole lot of edibles. And…me,” he finishes a little lamely. He knows he’ll love it himself, but he’s not sure that it’s the most romantic date venue.

But Christine seems intrigued. “I _did _promise to take Abby Trick-Or-Treating since I missed last year,” she says, all older-sisterly duty, “but her bedtime’s nine-thirty, ten on special occasions, and I know she’ll want to have at least _some _downtime to eat some of her candy, so you could pick me up then –” 

The more occupied Jeremy is on Halloween, the better, so he sweetens the deal. “I’ll do you one better – why don’t I co-chaperone with you guys? Abby and I are tight.”

It’s not a lie. Nine-year-old Abigail Canigula, an even more miniature and more excitable version of her big sister, adores him, and he melts for her, despite the occasional query as to whether or not he’s kissed ‘Chrissy’ yet, and if he’s any good at kissing her.

Said paramour brightens visibly at this suggestion. “Oh, you don’t have to –”

“I want to! We can go to Michael’s afterwards.”

“Then it’s a date,” Christine decides. There’s a gleam in her eye that makes Jeremy’s heart swell. “Speaking of dates…”

“Oh, boy.”

“I’ve just been so _busy, _and there’s the big debating tournament coming up later this month, and, yeah, I know we just planned Halloween, but while I’m trying to schedule and prioritize, I just, I don’t know. I want to make time for _you. _And for us, so…dinner?”

Jeremy swears he could swoon into her arms right then and there. “You really don’t gotta, but…”

“I already know a place! We took my _l__ă__olao _a couple of weeks ago for her birthday, it’s, like, _nice, _but not pricey at all? But definitely, like. A _dinner_-dinner, if you’re okay with that. Or we could just forget it and catch a movie…”

Never one to dim her excitement, and more than a little weak in the knees at the prospect of having an actual romantic fancy-ish dinner date with his girlfriend, Jeremy’s already agreeing. Besides, if he can handle this, then he can definitely handle the circuit-patterned elephant in the room. The room being his brain.

“Dinner sounds perfect. How does next Thursday look for you?”

“Thursday.”

Next Thursday will be better. 

** **

There’s a spring in his step when he walks Rich to the bus stop that afternoon. It doesn’t go unnoticed by his diminutive companion, who’s hogging the shared umbrella-space.

“You get some, tall-ass?” 

Jeremy chokes on pure air.

“What?” He practically squeaks out. “_When? _During the school day?”

Rich shrugs, looking amused and rather proud of himself for not losing his knack at flustering Jeremy, albeit under much friendlier (and rainier) skies. “It’s possible.”

“Oh, bull_shit_.”

“Only in Woodshop, though. Maybe the penalty box during hockey season.”

“Your experiences are not universal, Rich Goranski.” He’s not sure if he can safely make that joke until he gets the okay in the form of a sharp-toothed grin followed by some snickering. Even then, the relief he feels is only half-hearted.

_You should think before even having something to worry about, _he scolds himself. At least, he _thinks _it’s him doing the scolding.

“But you wish they were,” Rich completes the quote, before glancing up at him. “Anyway, who’s to say they’re _my _experiences?”

Jeremy raises his eyebrow. “So, no penalty box, then?”

Rich pauses, deciding his next words carefully. Then –

“No, I’m more of a props closet guy. Badly made Audrey II puppets and old Milky White statues are fuckin’ _erotic._”

Jeremy nearly pulls the umbrella away to let the little goblin soak in the rain for the crimes against sanity and humanity that he’s committing, but he doesn’t have the heart. “What the _fuck, _Rich–”

“Kidding, kidding!” Rich waves his hands around so vigorously it’s almost cute. His smile is definitely cute, all bright and earnest with only a hint of wickedness, bright enough to make the tight pinks of his facial burn glow with pride.

“Okay, good.” 

“I just bang against your gym locker during lunch breaks like any self-respecting man would. _Vicarious, _Heere…”

Jeremy lets out a groan shrill enough to be a scream. “You’ve got a really fucked-up sense of humour, you know that?”

Rich shrugs, cackling to himself. “Guilty as charged.” 

And there’s the word of the day. Month. Lifetime?

Rich is frowning now. “Something break your afterglow, Jere?”

Jeremy’s learned a lot about Rich, too, this past year, but how _perceptive _the guy is always seems to throw him for a loop. Maybe for the year and a half of severe shit the guy put him through, he coped and comforted himself (or rather, _Michael _comforted him) by insisting Rich was stupid, and that one day, his intellectual superiority would surely help him triumph over bloodied noses and homophobic slurs – because after all, the geeks would inherit, he knew the Book didn’t lie.

Or maybe his observational skills found its source in darker places. If two years with a SQUIP didn’t teach you to watch and guess ahead and evolve to survive, a lifetime with Mr. Goranski for a dad certainly would. It was a thought that Jeremy knows will make him sick if he dwells upon it. Which in turn makes him feel guiltier. _Poor baby can’t think about it? Rich has to live it. _

“I, uh.._._” Jeremy sighs. Might as well rip the Band-Aid here, too. And his not-dealing Band-Aid was such a nice one, too. Patterned with Wolverines and Spider-Man and everyone in between. 

“Yeah, I, um. I guess I just…how do you do it? With everyone?”

Rich’s jaw clenches, and even a year on after taking his last major beating, Jeremy flinches a little.

“Sorry, I just –” Rich waves him off.

“Don’t worry about it, Heere. I’ll tell ya this much; fuckin’ brave face goes a long way.”

“Yours is a lot braver than mine.” Part of Jeremy is trying to placate, but most of him means it. Thankfully, this seems to register with Rich, who gives him a much softer look as they round the corner of the sidewalk.

Jeremy doesn’t take this bus, but it’s a long ride to Rich’s cousin’s place, and he’s sure the guy could use the company.

“Don’t make Christine jealous, now,” Rich says, smiling a little before staring down at the muddy sidewalk, kicking a few yellow leaves up in the air before they can get stuck. “Honestly, dude, _I _don’t even know how either of us do it sometimes. We just do, because…because, well. We’re here. Gotta figure the rest out, y’know?”

Jeremy’s face is pained. “It’s…that simple?”

Rich laughs again, this time without mirth. “Never is. Same as how it’s pretty simple, _knowing _what’s done is done, but…”

It’s as if they’re synced all over again. “But living with what that means is another story.” Jeremy doesn't mean to sound so rueful, but perhaps it's just as well. 

Rich nods a little, looking troubled enough that rather than leaving him off, Jeremy ducks under the red, rain-slicked roof of the bus stop with him.

“You get it. You get…_me_, Heere, which, all things considered? Pretty fuckin’ unbelievable.” He bares his teeth in what Jeremy assumes is supposed to be a smile. It fades in an instant anyhow. “And also more than I can say for _some _people.”

Jeremy’s throat tightens, a warm pulse thumping hard against the walls as he thinks of what Jake said earlier in the week. He thinks about how Rich hits the movies and the dance studio with Brooke every other week, but still glares at her sometimes when she’s on her phone, and his shoulders sag.

“Look, with Jake…” Jeremy attempts, “he’s…everyone _wants _to get you, Rich. Everyone who counts. Couldn’t you just…?” 

“No, I couldn’t, tall-ass,” he snaps, and Jeremy jumps back. Then does something very stupid, but unlike every other previous impulse of his, it turns out to be the right one.

He flings his arms around Rich and hugs him tight, pulling him as close as physically, humanly possible. One human heart pressed right up against the other.

Rich hugs back, and doesn’t let go ‘till his bus comes. Even then, unhooking his arms takes a moment.

** **

The week passes, and there’s still no sign of SQUIP. Jeremy’s not sure if this is a blessing or a curse. He also doesn’t trust the radio silence a whit, not when that obvious a threat – no, with SQUIP it’s always a _promise _– was made.

But right now, it’s Wednesday night, and he’s got bigger problems.

Just because he’s made the executive decision to trust himself first and foremost when it comes to all matters (particularly those involving Christine) doesn’t mean he trusts himself to _know _everything. Or anything. In fact, as he scrolls WikiHow articles and Yahoo Answers anecdotes for how to handle fancy dinner dates, his internet history cataloguing just how low desperation will make a guy sink, Jeremiah Ezekiel Heere very much doubts he has ever had An Idea in his life. 

What he lacks in ideas, he makes up for in love, but love can’t account for _everything. _

He’s already researched the restaurant a dozen times over and determined the appropriate dress. Made and memorized a mental list of etiquette rules, and spent a lovely Saturday afternoon at the florist with Brooke putting together the most perfect bouquet (with all the appropriate flower meanings, of course). He’s also gone down the entire list of loved ones to consult for the coming evening, but despite Dad’s lengthy diatribes about young love, despite the expected conversation starters Michael’s thrown his way, the compliments the gang have all suggested (some of which are so stereotypically suave he’s not even sure Jake can pull them off), and a million pocket-square folding tutorials, there’s still one person he hasn’t asked for help.

One person he used to turn to a lot more often when it came to questions like these. Questions about love and music taste and about how to be the best man he can. Or really, just, how to be a person.

One person he’s a little afraid to talk to, after how they’ve drifted.

The back of his head, the part that produces thoughts beyond Jeremy’s understanding, buzzes in anticipation. But with one inhale, his mind is made up.

He prays he doesn’t regret this decision.

“Hey, Nato?” His voice shakes a little over the phone.

Maybe he’s mad. Mad it’s taken him this long to get back into contact – especially over the phone instead of texting him like a normal human being. And then playing a months-long game of read receipts chicken like a normal member of the Heere-Obenkrieger family.

“Ho-ly fu-_ckin shit,_” comes a nasal voice over the other line, clear as day, that instantly relaxes Jeremy and makes him feel warm. “Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss were about to blow their fuckin’ ice cream brains out in the face of betrayal and loneliness, but then right in the nick of time, _Hug-Me the Bear _enters the chat.”

Yep. Some things never change. Whether he’s goading him into eating enough cotton candy to make him sick, pulling faces in his Bar Mitzvah photos and encouraging him to do the same (mom was furious over that), or composing odes to his favourite class of creature, Nato will always be Nato.

“I know it’s been forever,” Jeremy’s voice is apologetic. “And things got, like, really crazy after I… went to the hospital. And then really busy in the _summer, _so I was only able to chat you those couple’a times, and we didn’t have time to get me up to Long Island for Rosh Hashanah with you guys this year, and…I’m sorry.”

A few fish-lipped pops on the other line, and Jeremy knows he’s in trouble. He hasn’t forgotten his big cousin’s tics.

“Yeah, calling bullshit on that last one, Hug-Me.”

“No, I _am _sorry!”

“Not that, dumbass. Rosh Hashanah. You could’ve come down. You just didn’t want to deal with Sharon. And I don’t blame you, man._ I_ don’t like dealing with her.”

Jeremy winces, but not too hard. It was weirdly nice, growing up, to have at least _one _person he could talk to honestly about what Mom was like. What it was like to be left alone with her whenever Dad got too consumed by work.

“I mean, yeah, that’s part of it. But I hope you’re doing okay.”

“I’m fine. Bored, but fine. Holidays suck without you.”

Jeremy sinks down onto his bed. It’s true; he doesn’t want to see her. He’s had had quite enough censure to last a lifetime, even if he’s technically unofficially invited for High Holidays every year (out of obligation, he thinks bitterly). Besides which, Dr. Shulman barely heard the half of it about Mom before suggesting he limit if not sever all contact in the interest of healing, even if it’s at the cost of contact with other, better relatives on her side of the family. 

Which unfortunately includes Nato. 

_He must feel like shit, being ghosted for this long, _Jeremy thinks in a panic. _You pulled a link-to-Jeremy-1.0 on him. Because you’re selfish. _

Jeremy’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’s –

“Okay, okay, enough sorries. I figured you were busy. Senior year’s serious shit, Baby-Jere.” The old nickname makes Jeremy smile and want to cry all at once. “So to what _do _I owe the pleasure?”

“I, um. I have a really fancy date tomorrow night…”

Nato whistles loudly. “Still Christie?”

“_Christine,_” Jeremy corrects. “And yeah…”

“Love that chick,” Nato says, and immediately Jeremy thinks back to that fateful summer night she and him had FaceTimed his cousin together, and how they ended up staying up way past sunrise together. “She’s wicked smart –”

“She is –”

“But not a dick about it. Like, just enough to get my jokes. And she’s stinkin’ adorable. Like, you know when you see a puppy and you want to crush it?”

“You want to _crush _Christi—oh. Cute aggression. You’re talking about cute aggression.”

“Whatever documentary words Mike’s been teaching you now, yeah. Oh, shit! Mike! I saw his Insta, he’s out there dating, too. Didn’t ever peg him as the type to go in for jocks. They grow up so f—”

“Nato, please,” he’d love to just shoot the shit, really, he would, but _not now,_ “I just— it’s a fancy place, and I’m wearing a suit. And I need to know how to do my tie and wear it right and — “

“Say no more. Suit’s worn with confidence. And I’m linking you my go-to article for how to tie the fly-est tie knot in the tristate area right…ba-ba-ba…” Jeremy’s messenger _dings _faintly from his computer speakers. “..now. You’re welcome.”

Another fucking article. That was the secret. Jeremy could kick himself, but at the same time, he can’t even pretend he isn’t glad to hear from Nato again.

“Thanks, dude. I appreciate it.”

“Right, just, don’t be wearing a _red _tie because that’s my thing and blue’s your thing. Or black, you funky little emo kid. Or pumpkin patterns. And when all else fails, know what makes for a good accessory?”

Jeremy rolls his eyes lovingly. “Capes?”

“That’s right! Fuckin’ capes! Seasonal, too. Get that Dracula shit in there. Which reminds me – we’re totally streaming _Stakes _before the month is out, right? For Halloween? I miss my _Adventure Time_ buddy.”

“I miss him too,” Jeremy says, voice thick. “Sure thing, dude. Just let me know when you’re free, but I also got plans the 31st –”

“Busy guy. Look at you! Senior year, double booked, _and _you got a girlfriend way out of your league – no offense, dude.”

“None taken, she is.” 

“What has it been, like, a _year _now since you two got together? That’s fuckin’ steady for high school.” Nato’s incredulity gives way, and he genuinely impressed. Definitely jealous, but probably at least a bit proud, or so Jeremy hopes. “C’mon, let me know. How have you two lasted this long? You get her possessed by Zuul or something? Gonna be her _keymaster_ – “

Fuck. There it is. It’s an innocuous enough comment, its origin even obvious to Jeremy – that he put it on for him and Michael for the first time when they were little, taking it upon himself to be their cultural education while also delighting in the chance at scaring them. That, and it’s a suitable reference considering it’s October, and ironic what with Michael’s choice in costume this year. But it’s enough.

_You get her possessed _– 

Nato has no idea. None. Then again, who could guess the girl your baby cousin is taking to dinner tomorrow once stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, soul paralysed within a body turned sarcophagus-shell? He sees her legs jerk and twitch, elbows popping too perfectly at the joints as she presses hands to his chest, wearing fake wings as if to mock the absence of the real ones clipped by mechanical scissors.

The auditorium is not alive. It is not dead. It is simply _awake. _

“Thanks, dude,” Jeremy says, feeling a bead of sweat slip down his brow. “I, uh – I think I hear my dad calling me, so, um – get back to you after the date, tell you how it went – and um – say hi to Brandon for me…”

Nato’s farewell is garbled at the other end of the line. Jeremy’s tortured inhalation grips his stomach, and he sways a little where he stands. Doesn’t quite register whether or not he hangs up, too preoccupied with trying to dispel audience seats filled with adults, blank faced and fucking useless and always looking the other way or believing what they need to be true, from the uneasy sanctuary of his bedroom. 

Hands scramble for purchase, for something, anything, and they land on the glass on his night table. Just water. Lukewarm, stale water that he didn’t finish last night or the night before, but he gulps it down anyway. Blinks rapidly, until the clutter on his desk swims back into view.

He takes his glasses off. Vision’s still blurry.

Jeremy lurches back against his bed, shaking and shuddering, each mid-breath a chance for a sip, or for a reminder. He can mess up his hair. He can do that, two shaky, sweaty hands sending his locks flying in every direction.

He plucks up his blue bear. He can sleep with a dozen plushies, or a real live emotional support rabbit, if that’s what helps him find peace.

And he can go downstairs and chug chocolate milk if he so pleases instead of shitty tepid water, skin problems and stomach-aches be damned. And he can choose who and what he can, and will listen to. He is young and he is good and he is strong. He has made it this far, and he has made it _very _far. 

Nobody can have it all, but he can, and will, have happiness. And properly-knotted ties. 

** **

Looks like he’ll have at least the last thing. After all, it’s time to get ready for his big date.

**“**You’re very selfish,” SQUIP informs him, looping the tie around his stiff, starched collar. His tone isn’t scolding as he remembers it can be, though. It’s deadpan, a flat declaration of simple fact, _two_ _plus_ _two_ _equals__ \--, _and this is somehow worse. _Not_ _angry__, __just_ _disappointed_. “Selfish because you’re scared.”

They are standing in front of the mirror, dirty now that it’s no longer taped over with _Back_ _to_ _the_ _Future_ posters. Jeremy doesn’t move, idly watching the wide end cross over the narrow. Tying their beings together through a perfect Windsor knot – tightening the noose. Faintly, he recalls the SQUIP’s sympathetic clucking over his dad never teaching him how to tie a tie. **_You_****_’_****_re_** **_missing_** **_a_** **_lot_** **_of_** **_father_****_-_****_son_** **_guidance_****_, _****_hm_****_? _****_So_** **_much_** **_the_** **_better_**_. _**_You_****_’_****_ll_** **_spare_** **_yourself_** **_a_** **_most_** **_heinous_** **_influence_****_. _**

“Y-yeah, that’s called basic survival instinct, y-you, you, – you _fucking_ dumbass.” He’s aware, on some level, that it’s a dream, or else he’d surely feel his retribution coming in hot now. The knowledge is as cathartic as it is frustrating. “Comes naturally to all humans. But you never picked up fully on what makes us—”

“And the saddest cut of all,” SQUIP continues as if Jeremy said nothing, doesn’t even bother looking up from its handiwork, looping through a horizontal band, “is that you think you’re being _valiant_, imposing your fear on everyone else. Effectively depriving them in the process.”

“Isn’t _everyone_ _afraid_ _of_ _something_?” Jeremy would like to spit this, but his voice falters. Like it always does.

SQUIP shrugs, pulling a perfectly horizontal loop outward.

Something in Jeremy bristles at the injustice of having a machine’s placidity. Of being able to simply _take_ self-contradiction in as another fact, a programmer’s note, not a condemnation that would make you _realize_ even an iota of the bullshit you caused. SQUIP doesn’t deserve to be free of the crushing weight of guilt, while he has to crumble under it like Atlas, or briefly, Percy Jackson. (Annabeth, for longer, he reminds himself. Christine would never forgive him if he left the real hero out.)

It’s fucking unfair. Like Jake’s legs, but more so, his hesitance. Like how his dad got better, and Rich’s didn’t. Like the calligraphied wedding invitation that languishes half-stuffed in his dresser-drawer.

It’s unfair that the perpetrators get off scot-free. Every fucking time.

And it’s unfair that he envies how qualms get lost between lines of code.

The tie tightens around his throat.

SQUIP’s condescending laughter is half-infuriating, half-resigned in and of itself, but his tone stays measured as he slips the tie through the loop. “You know _full_ _well_ it’s your own fear keeping you from that freedom, Jeremy. Keeping _everyone_ from it. Selfish problems, all because of such.”

SQUIP pulls the wide end of the tie taut.

“A selfish.”

SQUIP drops the silky black fabric flat against Jeremy’s shirt.

“Boy.”

Just as Jeremy opens his mouth to argue back, the SQUIP’s head snaps up in that singularly mechanical way of his. Uncanny. Not even a platinum lock tousled out of place from the calculated mop it had fashioned. Half of his face flickers – clips backwards, behind where his head should be, then forwards, in a series of bricking green pixels. 

Meeting those mismatched voltaic eyes for the first time in months, glitching or not, Jeremy falls silent. Feels his throat pulse and burn with swift acid nausea when he sees those hands raise –

Only to smooth out the creases in the tie. Test the knot for any unseemly slack, and, finding none, let implacable features mold into an indulgent smile, each joint moving more like a series of interconnected automated parts than facial muscles. Satisfied with his work. 

The smile makes Jeremy feel sicker.

Mostly, he realizes, because it makes a small (but not small enough) part of him feel proud.

“_There_ we are,” fusses the SQUIP, and if he has to hear one more vocally-fried comment from this megalomaniacal digitized valley boy, Jeremy might just pull an Inception. (He’s only seen half of the movie, but it feels like an appropriate reference to make when trapped in a subconscious hell with everyone’s least-favourite supercomputer). 

SQUIP doesn’t miss a trick. He ruffles Jeremy’s hair, and undoes the tie in two swift movements. “Now you.” 

Jeremy scowls and doesn’t stir a limb.

Even in his dreams (nightmares? It’s oddly calm for one), an undead SQUIP can’t tug the puppet strings like he once did whenever the opportunity arose. It should be enough of a miracle.

_Dayenu__. _It _is_ enough. Isn’t it?

But Jeremy knows better than to think he is safe when he can still see an even slightly-corporeal robo-Keanu. And besides, he hasn’t yet woken.

Seemingly amused by his stubbornness, SQUIP pets his cheek, chuckling and _aww_-ing. “Come _on__, _Jeremy,” the computer wheedles. “Practice makes perfect.”  
  
“Get fucked.”

The SQUIP’s blue eye glows an unnatural cyan. “Petulant as ever.”

Jeremy bites back an apology he knows the fucking thing doesn’t deserve.

“Careful, now, Jeremy. You know better than anyone how easily an opportunity can pass you by. _Are_ _you_ _sure_ _you_ _don__’__t_ _want_ _to_ _fix_ _your_ _tie__?_”

In a moment of fleeting inspiration, Jeremy lights up.

“I’d rather sever it,” Jeremy says, feeling pretty fucking spectacularly triumphant that he came up with his own witty one-liner in the moment, rather than after the fact, without having it fed to him. And an ironic callback, at that. “Else, y’know_. __I__’__ll_ _drown_.”

Like Yzma before him, SQUIP doesn’t seem impressed. The lights dance on his – its – forehead again, and for half a moment it looks like his head is lolling to the side, eyes unblinking – but no. He’s back in place. He’s always in place. 

**Fix** **your** **tie****, ****Jeremy****. **

Jeremy’s hands move, unbidden, more fluidly than they do when left to their own klutzy devices. It is painful but it is _freeing__, _because he doesn’t have the burden of choosing, and the pain gives him structure, the freedom makes him feel just so _wonderful_ –

Jeremy surges up in bed, hair plastered to his forehead. His hands are crossed like tie-loops, secured around his own throat. Not tightly, though – he is choking and sputtering from pure panic, the taste of copper strong in his mouth. He’s bitten his tongue hard enough to split cells and skin in his sleep.

_“_ _Letmegoletmegoletmego_ _—”_

But nothing answers. Nothing laughs at him in the dark. Nothing prompts, nothing maneuvers. There are no shadows dancing against the wall. Nor the flickering of lights, the small incandescence heralding a most unwanted (well, debatably) digital presence.

Jeremy gasps, then lets his breath out. His shirt sticks to his back from the sweat. Pries his hands slowly from his neck, then grasps at the sheets – then behind him, at the headboard. The force of his jerky movements is too much, too soon after his return to consciousness, and it nearly topples him into the crack between the bed and the wall. And the last thing he can be is _stuck_, his breathing heavy and hard, loud wheezes that split his own eardrums.

So get unstuck. Slowly, though.

He’s practiced Dr. Shulman’s grounding exercises enough to commit them to muscle memory. Bend each fingertip just at the topmost joint.

Pinkie…. ring…. middle…. index…. thumb. That’s the left hand. Now the right. Rinse and repeat. _Fix_ _your_ _tie__ – _

No. No tie, only his black _Beauty and the Beast _cast T-shirt, lovingly signed by everyone involved, and a pair of plaid boxers. Bare feet. Bare neck. Bare mind.

No one is controlling him. He is in his bedroom, alone. The lights are out, and his friends are a text away – his _friends_ \--

He scuttles towards his nightstand again, thumbs twitching when they meet the smooth, flat surface of a screen. To his dismay, his phone reads **3:35 ****AM****.**

Fuck. Shit. So much for Thursday being better. He’s not getting back to sleep after this. He doesn’t dare risk it.

Looks like SQUIP’s made his move.

It’s cold in the restaurant, but Jeremy’s still sweating like a kid with poor parenting-induced personality flaws at a madman’s murderous and unforgiving little chocolate factory. 

And it feels like an armada of Oompa Loompas – no, the walls – are closing in on him.

Christine’s radiant as always, donning a dress that fits the autumn season – dark gold lace cinched at the waist with a burgundy bow that matches her tights. She’s chatting away about how she will fight Mr. Reyes to the death herself in the school parking lot if he screws over the deeper themes in _Much Ado _this fall with some of his classic Reyes production ideas; regrettably, it already seems like he’s back on his bullshit, much to her outrage. Jeremy’s able to at least voice some agreement as to that much; he has next to no hope for _Much Ado About Lovecraftian Horrorterrors in Revolutionary Russia_.

The irony of being cast as Don John – no, sorry, _Comrade _John – hasn’t been lost on him. Not the irony that Alanis would sing about, but the irony that leaves him retching into toilets. Like he did after his breakfast today. And then again after lunch, when he couldn’t get last night out of his head.

He really should just try to enjoy this, he reasons. The restaurant is a gorgeous dining hall, formal, elegant, and bright, all ornately carved wooded statues and lush floral carpets, and the music is beautiful, soft strings melting resplendently against woodwinds. Christine’s a joy, and the steamed shrimp dumpling appetizers melted deliciously into his mouth. Everything’s set, and all he can do is wait for the other shoe to drop.

He loosens his tie.

“So, your Spanish class had the big quiz today, right? I know you studied really hard for it,” he offers, praying that bringing up school won’t stress Christine out.

Her delicate features seem to soften at him remembering, though. “It was hard getting around to at first,” she nods, “what with quarters for debating on the weekend, and auditions on Monday, plus that completely _awful _Geo presentation just, looming over me in the distance,” she outstretches her palm as if to indicate where the presentation’s might be manifesting, “like a big, looming…”

“Don Cthulhu?” Jeremy suggests, grinning wickedly. Shuddering, Christine laughs out a “_nooooo!”_ and kicks him playfully under the table. Jeremy yelps – she’s ridiculously strong for her size.

“But honestly, I think it went okay! Which is amazing, because it was longer than I expected, and I _nearly _ran out of time, but then totally didn’t.” Soft rose-bud lips tilt up at the edges, and for a moment, Jeremy’s able to lose himself again, at least a little, because he’s sure he’s entered some alternate plane of reality just by looking at and listening to her. But, like, an alternate plane of reality in a totally-respects-her-as-a-person, appreciates-her-mind kind of way.

“That’s great,” Jeremy says, tapping her foot under the table twice. Lightly tapping, mind you. Not kicking like a maniac. “I knew you could do it.”

Christine dives halfway across the table to kiss his cheek. They’re pretty surprisingly big on PDA, but also on picking up each other’s tells – which is why she doesn’t go for the lips this time, much to Jeremy’s relief. Besides which, they’d got plenty enough of that in earlier in the evening in the rush of perfect flower bouquet-induced euphoria. (_Thank you, Brooke!)_

Their main platters arrive before them, and Jeremy fumbles with his duck as the conversation follows its usual trajectory – one reminiscent of nothing so much as a particularly militant bumblebee hopped up on the bee equivalent of mescaline.

First it’s his classes – good, they’re good, can’t complain, except about math, but that’s nothing new. Then it’s back to the play again, how they plan on tackling their respective characters, what interpretations they’re going to work in, what details and gags and Easter eggs they hope they can manage, because in a Reyes production, the quality has to be snuck in all surreptitious-like rather than being an intentional outgrowth of collaboration between the cast and crew. There are compliments sprinkled in here and there, and a few funny stories of things that happened in their classes.

As the main meal draws to a close, Christine is wheezing her way through the last of her rice. “No – no, he _didn’t _–”

“I swear, he did! This is why you don’t get a sub for a class where you have to repeatedly say ‘_The Annals of Ancient Rome’ –_”

Christine’s laughter is loud and warm and welcoming, so heavy her cheeks tint with roseate flush. Those deep russet hues shine just-so by candlelight, and while Jeremy can’t quite get lost in them between mouthfuls of food, he can still look, and look, and look, and never want to look away. Everything she says, her every quirk and her grandiose ideas, the moments she forgets what she’s going to say, every last detail and bend and curve and divot of Christine Canigula has him caught by the heart, and he’s more than happy to be dragged along.

“Well,” she says when she finally catches her breath, “_to err is human._” 

**How right she is.**

Jeremy catapults upwards in his seat, as if a brutal electric shock hit him right at the base of his spine. And indeed, even a year on, the phantom pains haven’t quite ebbed away. Not after a nearly four-month gig spent as a human lightning rod. Every muscle in his body pulls taut, pale river hues cautiously shifting left to right as he surveys his surroundings, finding no source to the sound he just heard, although he swears he can just _feel _the presence of lips somewhere close to his ears. Every hair of his neck stands on end, each tendon in his twitching fingertips locking into stillness. He is keenly aware of his every pore, of the fact that his breathing has stilled and stopped – _not now _–

_I can’t do this now, Jeremy. _

The past and present are two vertices of the same awful prism now, a distorted funhouse mirror view, an endless ocean that barrels over his gaping mouth, pulling him under, under, under. The candlelight’s growing longer, longer as his vision swims, a lengthy fragment he shatters with a blink. He thinks he can glimpse her concern, but if it bleeds into past-Christine’s face, he knows it’ll look like rage if he looks too closely, so he doesn’t, doesn’t reply to her calls of his name, which sound muffled in his ears. Like Nato’s voice over bad reception. Like he’s hearing her through a faulty machine –

Hands unfreeze and fly up, and he finally, finally inhales again when spasming palms land heavy on the arms of his glasses.

Glasses. He’s wearing his glasses. The lighthouse beckoning him to a safer shoreline. His reassurance. Salvation at the hands of a genetic predisposition towards astigmatism. Who knew?

He pulls them off. His eyesight is terrible. Christine’s _really _blurry now, but for a good reason.

“Sorry,” he gasps. “I’m so sorry. I just...”

“I’m right here. We’re right here, Jeremy. It’s okay. You’re okay.” Christine sounds frightened, but it’s not the high notes of terror born of concern he recalls breaking through a world turned into pure agony and electricity while he writhed on the food court floor, a lifetime ago, a minute ago. This is steadier.

He knows why. Knows with more than a small measure of shame imbued into him like poison, because he _shouldn’t have to carry it _and let it corrode and decompose his fragile heart. Knows that she’s worried but not confused because this is far from the first time she’s seen it happen.

Jeremy shuts his eyes tight.

“Take your time,” Christine says. “Do you need me to...? Are you okay if I…?”

“Y-yeah.”

She takes hold of his hands, chubby, temperate palms squeezing his under the table – not over, because that’s too close to a séance, and the last thing either of them want right now is to wake the dead. Gentle. Encouraging.

Breathe. Go from furthest to closest – big circle, small circle. Concentrate on the cascading pentatonic scales of the music. Next, the loudly clamor of conversations all around them, then Christine’s steady breathing, soft huffs that he loves to feel tickling his cheek when she dozes off against him at the movies, or at home. Or in the back of Michael’s Cruiser. Hell, even in the back of class, sometimes. 

Heat still pricks at the back of Jeremy’s neck, at the tips of his jug ears. Pulsates something furious in his throat. But he’s here. He’s here. He’s here. With Christine. And this is supposed to be a good date. No. It _is _a good date. 

He lets go of her hands just as he tentatively lets his eyelids flutter open, and by then it’s far too late to realize his mistake.

His glasses are still discarded on the table, and his vision is still little more than vague shapes and outlines. Nothing sharp, nothing artificially high-def. Nothing to make him feel like Spider-Man, because he can’t even enjoy the early-2000’s cheesiness of his favourite superhero without sparking furtive hands tainting that, too. Ruining it.

_Not ruin, _he thinks with a shudder. _Bring to life. Don’t you want to live out your heroes’ stories, Jeremy?_ (Just because he’s mimicking him in his head doesn’t make the statement any less upsetting.) 

No, what concerns Jeremy is the fact that there is one thing he _can _see clearly, right after the fifth blink. Just in one eye, the letters are perfectly clear to him, blinking and flashing a bright, accusatory vermilion.

**E R R O R **

He’s imagining it. He has to be. Just close your eyes again, blink, and…

**コーディングエラー**

What scares him most of all is that he _understands _what the characters mean. And he barely can fumble his way through Yiddish_…_speaking of which, this is utter fucking mishigas for which he just does not have the koyach.

“Jeremy?” Christine’s voice is smaller than ever, now, and fuck, shit, he can’t freak out now and start imagining things again, not here, not with her, not on their special night. It’s not as if he can explain, anyhow. he words are all long-dead in his throat, a pileup of unearthed corpses. 

Okay. Okay. He’s okay. This time, he’ll put his glasses on first. _Then _he'll open his eyes.

He slowly slides the cool metal up the bridge of his nose, letting it drag hard over the bump to ground him further. Waits a solid fifteen-twenty before opening his eyes again.

And they scorch.

Scrolling lines of zeroes and ones run, vertical and horizontal, across Jeremy’s line of vision, obscuring the world around him despite the sharp relief the lenses are supposed to provide. The code lines are in sickeningly bright green this time, and no matter how he blinks, no matter how fast or in what direction he jerks his head, he can’t be rid of it. 

**Rid of it? You'll never be. At any rate, I thought you _envied_ me my code. It certainly beats having a conscience, no? **

Jeremy can’t retort, can barely breathe. The code is all there is, and his eyes burn, his mouth burns, his lungs burns, and his mind burns, burns with the fury of the knowledge that he will never, ever gain access to the programmers’ notes, just _get with the programming, _**fulfill your programming –**

Another laugh, mechanical and cold, fills his ears. **Human physiology is just the _worst, _isn’t it? So limiting. Never wants to branch out –**

He feels electricity hit his neck with a sharp jolt as something unseen branches his mind out, bridges it to another’s psyche. No – no, that can’t be happening, the SQUIP isn’t here, no one else with one is here, besides which, he, it, isn’t nearly strong enough, _he’s strong, not the SQUIP_ **–**

**The never-finished code. And yet, with so simple a solution… **

Jeremy writhes. _Never, _he thinks desperately, reaching out and feeling nothing, seeing nothing but the code. _Never that. Never – _

**Oh, come, come. Stop being such a baby. Look how badly the date’s going without my help! **

_No, _because_ of you! _

There’s a blinding flash that calcifies him into granite, scorching his retinas to what should be a crisp. Jeremy’s surely on the brink of madness – he cannot say what is real or not, _where _or who or even what he is, can’t even locate the different parts of his own minimalist guesstimate of anatomy, situate the eyes that pain and terrorize him so relative to the rest of his poor body. But he still has enough brainpower to throw one last middle-finger into the void – because he still remembers his Bubbe, four foot ten of pure Ashkenazi spite. What would she say to all of this? _Vaksn zolstu vi a tsibele mitn kop in dr'erd. _

The SQUIP understands, of course. And doesn’t appreciate the ill-wish one damn bit.

**There’s still much I _can _do, Jeremy. Activated or not. **

_Then what do you need _me _for? _

**No, no, no. Wrong as ever, boo, **he tut-tuts, all condescension, and for a split second Jeremy remembers Michael Mell exists, too, because he came up with the more than apropos nickname of _John Prick _last Christmas, and he’s thought on it when he’s needed to ever since.

**You need _me. _**

There is jutting bone, sundered cleanly in two, but he cannot say what part of the body that is, or to whom it belongs, although he idly knows it’s his. Or are they? Somewhere, faintly, he’s almost absolutely sure he can hear a pair of crutches clamoring to the polished floor of a stage…

** _Look what you’re making me –_ **

**_Look what you’re – _**the pitch bends and distorts, all wonky reverb and harsh static. Glitching, he realizes. A harsh scream of metal shatters his eardrums, and then the voice clears up again, but SQUIP isn’t there in the not-flesh (not my flesh, not my flesh, _not my flesh!_) so he knows it isn’t –

**Let’s at least try to appraise things honestly, shall we? The blood’s not on _my _hands, here. **As if to drive home the point, hot blood sluices down his face, down his chest, but he can’t source the wound. He just knows it’s excruciating, and his hands are permanently stained as geysers continue to spurt everywhere but into his burning, burning eyes, the lines of code scrolling all the more rapidly _–_

Jeremy’s voice would shrill in panic if it wasn’t already torn from him. And to get his voice back, he knows what he has to do, logically, which is make sure he hurts of his own accord and not this digital asshole’s, hurt because he deserves it, hurt so no one else will have to, will have to…

Neither corded muscle nor middle-aged flab presses against the base of his throat, and so Jeremy doesn’t have to worry about being raised in the air and tossed about like a chew toy, a rag-doll. A broken puppet.

(It was weeks before the bruises Mr. Reyes left on his neck purpled and faded. Jeremy’s since developed an affinity for scarves even when it’s too warm.) 

It breaks concentration when he’s starving _himself _of the oxygen, one hand crossing over the other, mummy-in-the-sarcophagus, to press fingers into pale flesh, press them hard. It’s easy to ignore his own flailing when the alternative is a million times worse, although his body fights back. But he knows what to do when his body, his faulty human body, the bad lines of bad code, rebels against him. And that’s fight to the bitter end. No matter how his eyes bulge, vessels dilating, balloons threatening to pop form the strangulation, he cannot give up – his tongue flails senselessly, but he is stronger than it, stronger than the bad code, than his weak, broken bones, _stronger than it says he is_ _–_

**Jeremy. What are you doing? Jeremy, Jeremy – **

“Jeremy, Jeremy, _what are you doing, Jeremy _–” Christine is crying, pleading as she wrestles him against the smooth stone of the coat check hall. He doesn’t know how he got here. Somewhere, faintly, he hears the gentle, steady trickle of the fountain he so admired upon entering.

His hands go slack, and he and Christine both go crashing to the ground, mercifully left be from any onlookers. They land in an unceremonious heap, Christine still flung halfway across his torso, the two panting and gasping. All they can do is sit there, sprawling on the floor like two kids who just got into a fight over blocks. They cry like them, too. 

After a few minutes of messy sobbing that feel like hours, Jeremy realizes, with a sickening jolt, what this must’ve looked like to Christine. To anyone not plunged halfway between fraying wire and a machine’s living death. His living death?

(It’s all wires. Wires for computers, and wires for puppets. Wires for a corpse’s limbs to make them presentable. It all comes back to wires. Wires spilling out of a stupid-ass silver lamé coat -)

Slow, shallow gasps, now. Christine holds his cheeks in her hands again, and he’s embarrassed to feel how damp they are with sweat and tears against her palms. Her eyeliner’s running down her face, and she’s looking at him _the way she did in the mall _–

“What…Jeremy…please, _what h—_”

Before he can stop himself, the hateful monosyllable passes his lips.

“_Don’t._”

Just like that, she recoils. As if trying to rip the soundwaves out of the air and stuff them back into his mouth, cram them down his throat and choke on that and finish the job, Jeremy claps his hands over his lips, eyes blown wide, shaking from toe to tip. His throat is raw, it aches to the touch which means there’s probably bruising, but he’s still breathing, through the cracks between his fingertips. Not well (**_faulty_**), but he’s doing it.

He’s not sure what upsets him most.

“I’m _sorry_,” she says, but the harsh consonants on the apology give it some tartness that smells like venom. The kind that drip from the snake’s teeth only when it goes on the defensive. “I...”

“No.” Jeremy gulps, and pulls himself to his feet on shaking legs he doesn’t register as being connected the rest of his body. “No, no. Y-you didn’t…_I’m_ sorry. The, uh, the…the buh…” He fishes around in his pocket for his coat check ticket. “The b-bill…”

“Took care of it.” Christine says thinly. Jeremy can’t bring himself to look at her.

Great. He failed at even picking up the cheque like Dad taught him. 

No voice comes into his head to singsong an eerie _I told you so, _or to offer services yet again. Jeremy’s horrified to find he almost wants it. But is it so wrong to want comfort, even from something so vile? From a monster?

No. Not a monster. Worse than a monster. Monsters can be slain, or trained, or reasoned with, or pitied. Failing that, they die out eventually.

This is a _machine_. Immortal, implacable, immaculate.

And doesn’t know pity from disgust, though it can skilfully imitate both, nor right from wrong. Because the SQUIP was never right or wrong, even while still active and at full power. Just _correct, _and correct_ing. _

“I’ll, um. I’ll g-get you back. T-tomorr…at some point. Cover both of us.” He finds the ticket. And pulls the tie loose from his neck, stuffing it in his pocket to replace the purple square of cardboard, before going to get his jacket. 

He doesn’t dare look back.


End file.
